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'A Good Day to Die Hard'

The original Die Hard (1988) is such a perfect expression of the ideals of American manliness that it has become something of a cultural artifact. At the least, it is enjoyable B-movie fodder. At the most, it is a confident, intelligently violent, masculine missile launched into the heart of an increasingly weak-kneed world. Centuries from now, historians will study it to learn about us … and accidentally watch it four consecutive times. You know, for research.

The plot was simple, potentially xenophobic and symbolic. A cynical, pragmatic cop, John McClane (Bruce Willis), rolls into town to save his marriage with his attractive, corporate-ladder climbing wife, Holly (Bonnie Bedelia). Eventually, foreign terrorists show up, McClane systematically and ingeniously kills them all, the attractive businessman who hits on Holly gets his head blown off and McClane gets his wife back. Jackpot.

Fifteen years later, John McClane is no longer the everyman. He has stopped everything from rogue U.S. Special Forces to cybercriminals on his way to becoming a terrorist killing machine.

A Good Day to Die Hard Official Trailer #1 (2013) - Bruce Willis Movie HD

Live Free or Die Hard (2007), the last entry in the series, forced me to realize that I can’t punish any new Die Hard films for not echoing the original. Die Hard was a tightly knit, practical-effects-filled actioner (and my favorite Christmas movie). But that era is over. We’ve traded out stunt guys for computers and handguns for automatics. And it isn’t fair to punish these new Die Hard movies for belonging to their generation, even if I prefer the original.

But it is fair to punish these movies if they aren’t very good as action movies. And, unfortunately, A Good Day to Die Hard falls into that category.

Honestly, I’m not sure why I was expecting more. DH5 (sorry, AGDtDH is just too ridiculous an acronym) is directed by John Moore, whose last effort was the infamously bad Max Payne, and is written by Skip Woods, who almost killed my love of X-Men with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Bruce Willis is close to 60. And rarely has the fifth movie of any series been any good.

Ultimately, I think the allure of the Die Hard was just too strong. If they tap into that ethos even a little, I thought, I’m bound to enjoy myself.

Unfortunately, DH5 misreads all the reasons why we love Die Hard and serves up action devoid of context. Much of this blame falls on the shoulders of the middling story. Essentially, there is a large, Russian conspiracy involving a political criminal that eventually comes to involve McClane and his son, Jack (Jai Courtney). Underneath the convoluted political drama (one hour in, and I couldn’t name the villain) the true story is the father-son relationship—but even here the dialogue feels forced and awkward.

Unfortunately, DH5 misreads all the reasons why we love Die Hard and serves up action devoid of context.

The problems don’t stop with the story but bleed into the action sequences, as well. To its credit, these scenes are technically executed well and portrayed with clarity. The filmmakers resist the urge to shaky-cam us out of comprehension. But it is all done with no sense of risk. McClane Sr. probably shoots a wider variety of guns and fires more bullets than in any other movie in the series, but he manages to do so with little excitement or tension. At one point, our heroes are sitting on their knees, bound, in front of an armed criminal. But neither the audience nor the McClanes feel any suspense about the outcome.

One of the great selling points of John McClane’s character is how difficult it is for him to succeed. By the time we get to the end of the original Die Hard, his feet have been cut open by glass, he has been beat up, and he is covered in blood. And we feel that pain. When John sits at the sink, pulling glass shards out of his foot, we wince and empathize. And when he realizes that he may die, we see his most vulnerable moment as a character.

But there is no difficulty or vulnerability this time around. Killing is easy, and surviving insane action sequences is easier. About the fourth time McClane Sr. is launched through a glass window, mostly unharmed, the crowd in my theater actually laughed. It is just too much.

With Arnold Schwarzenegger’s The Last Stand and Sylvester Stallone’s Bullet to the Head both bombing at the box office, many wonder if the national conversation over gun violence has brought an end to the big, gun-driven action flick. A Good Day to Die Hard, with its franchise name and star actor, was primed to be the true indicator of whether or not this is true. But if DH5 does poorly, it won’t be because there was gun violence.

Excellent movie. Over $110 million opening weekend. Sounds like the national agenda on anti-gun rights is only prevailing as forced rhetoric. For comparison, Arnolds and Slys movies bombed horribly...likely due to the water-carrier hypocrisy of these washed up Hollywood elite.